How We Chose the Best Residential Proxy Providers
At the beginning of the year, we ran a proxy market research. There, we consulted 191 experts across 6 verticals. Then, we tested the 9 largest residential proxy providers for 2 months. We looked at their performance metrics (such as speed, connection success rate, performance under load), features, and customer service experience. The rankings above are based on our findings.
It’s a really objective tool for comparing proxy services; every company should take a look at the research before deciding which to buy. – NetPeak Software
Why You Shouldn’t Use Free Residential Proxies
Free proxies might seem like a good bargain, but you should avoid them. They will most likely be slow and abused, making them effectively useless. Also, whoever controls a free proxy needs to make money. So, they can embed fake ads into your browser, log your internet usage, or even infect your computer with malware. Be very careful when using a free residential proxy and never send any sensitive information through it. You can learn more about the dangers of free proxies here.
Frequently Asked Questions About Residential Proxies
What Is a Residential IP Proxy?
When Should I Use a Residential Proxy?
Residential proxies are a great choice when:
- your target is actively looking to block you. For example, this includes most sneaker sites, Google search, and large e-commerce websites like Amazon.
- you need broad location coverage. You can get a residential IP in any country in the world. Datacenter proxies are more limited.
- you want to do high volume scraping. Residential proxies scale very well and they automatically rotate.
- you want to browse anonymously. VPNs hide you but not the fact you’re using a VPN. Residential proxies make it look like you’re browsing as a different person.
How to Get Residential Proxies?
You can buy residential proxies from any of the providers on our list. Many of them offer a free trial or at least a money-back guarantee, so you can try out the residential proxy network without any risk.
Can I Buy Static Residential Proxies?
Yes. More and more providers are starting to offer residential proxies that come directly from internet service providers and not end users. We feature a few of them in our list.
What’s the Difference Between Residential vs Datacenter Proxies?
Datacenter proxies come from servers stored in powerful data centers. They’re cheap, stable, and fast, but at the same time very easy to detect. Residential proxies borrow IP addresses for real users. This makes them slower and more expensive, but also much harder to spot.